Apple reveals iPhone OS 4.0 on April 8

Better messaging (I shouldn't have to stop what I am doing, leave an app, wait for SMS/email to open, reply, leave the messaging app I'm using, relaunch what I was originally doing, all just to say "okay, see you at 5."

Better lock screen. Something like the jailbreak lock info app would be great.

Getting crazy here, but one of the few reasons I still jailbreak is for SBSettings. Something with similar functionality would be great.

I am jailbroken, but my experience thus far is that Apple generally does it better than the jailbreak community. For example, you could copy/paste using jailbreak stuff before 3.0, but Apple's implementation is much better. I actually went vanilla at 3.0 because the functionality was finally a bit better than jailbreaking could offer at the time.

The only thing I still jailbreak for is SBSettings, GVmobile, backgrounder, and quicksms. I use a 3G, which I feel is a bit too slow to do theming and lockinfo, but on a 3GS I'd probably use that, too. Oh, I also use bluetooth mono and occasionally my3g for skype.

I agree. Thats why I find it so frustrating that Apple doesn't take note of the bonuses given by jailbreaking. Instead they put it off as a tool to pirate apps.

But at this point, I don't see myself going vanilla. I would lose way too much for probably very little gain. While Apple could likely do it better, theres no way they would implement everything I've grown to love about my phone.

And yup, on my 3GS, everything runs smoothly and snappily, and I have quite a bit of customization.

What I've been saying for a while is that Apple needs to embrace the jailbreak community. Make an "experimental" toggle in the depths of settings and let it happen. Put right on the page that Apple will not support devices using experimental settings, and everyone can be happy.

Sounds fair enough. I'm actually fine with how the process is now, I just wish Apple didn't go to such lengths to prevent it. As it is, anybody who has the desire and the intelligence to jailbreak can, and anybody who is happy with their phone as it is can go about their business.

Nah, Apple developers are rather talented. The iPhone OS is spectacular, and notice our only complaints are missing features, not how terrible the current features work. (Which is surprising, because this is a common argument against other phones).

If Apple wants better functionality, they've got the talent to make it happen.

I think Apple could cure cancer or AIDS and people would still complain that it doesn't whiten their teeth as well...

Edit: Since when do you have to by a new phone to get an OS upgrade? 2.x and 3.x were free for iPhone users. We iPod Touch buyers had to pay $5-$10 for them, but there wasn't any hardware upgrade involved.

Allowing non-App Store apps to be installed, even if the option is buried under a deluge of warnings about how doing so will cause my iPhone/iPod to explode and how Apple will take absolutely 0 responsibility for it.

"Now, we know everybody is anxious to know whether or not we will support Adobe Flash. As we have stated, this just won't be possible right now. However, we understand the need for dynamic content on the web. That is why, I am proud to announce that iPhone OS 4.0 will support Microsoft Silverlight!"

Huh, it looks awful on both my late 2006 MacBook Pro and my early 2009 Mac Mini: noticeably worse than DVD quality. The picture is soft and macroblocking is visible even on a 720p LCD TV.

Have you seen Netflix on an Xbox 360 or a PS3? Both of those look quite good compared to what I get on my Macs, and subjectively appear to be a bit better than DVD quality (I haven't done a proper A/B test). I wonder if I'm doing something wrong, or if we simply have much different ideas of what "looks great" means.

I am connected to a very fast university network. I have a 1080p monitor and when sitting back a decent distance (which is ideal anyway) the picture looks incredible for HD content. I use Netflix on my PS3 all the time and I often prefer to use my computer because the browsing experience is so much better. I have a late 2007 MBP, but they upped the processor quite a bit between our models.

EDIT: I am also not an expert in image quality other than what looks good to me. I am not looking for specific qualities besides smoothness in frame rate and lack of blockiness.

Am I the only one hoping for some sort of response to the competition's free included turn-by-turn navigation? That would be my #1 request. I was awed by the demonstration of Google Nav, but also terribly depressed that I'd probably never see it because the growing divide between Google and Apple.

This is pure speculation, but I think that Beta 1 will be seeded April 8, and the final SDK will be released at WWDC in June or a few months later. The hardware would be announced and released around the same timeline.

Exactly... and as much as I really do want to hear about iPhone OS 4, I REALLY need a new macbook and have been waiting for them to announce the new ones since like November. This is just getting silly.

Nope. New iPhone in June, like always. They've done it in June for 3 years now. Expect that they'll announce the software on April 8th, to come out in time for the new iPhone model to natively have it in early June.

movement of some data features to more sharable locations in the underlying file system, or improved APIs for accessing whats there already.

Tethering (finally) on AT&T @ $10 or less.

June release date.

no announcements of specific new hardware, but hints about what's coming.

iPhone WiFi to 3G bridge mode for non 3G iPad (since they can't technically tether as the cable spec has no crossover option in the design).

Verizon is a "no-go" announcement.

*Multitasking will likely be limited to apps that Apple determines have a genuine benefit that can not be replicated via notifications (active playing or real-time monitoring in background). This will likely be limited to specific application types (music streaming, GPS, syncing are the ONLY ones that come to mind). An expose-like switching system will likely be the method, strict memory and resource management ensured, and likely multiple app types like games (CPU/GPU intensive; actively uses inputs; would not make sense to do with other stuff in background) won't be able to run with other apps in the background at all. Any apps that could "suspend" in a saved state will also likely be forced to vs multitasking. It's going to be a hard sell to get apple to approve a multitasking app... (and I think it should be, multitasking of many app types is simply a programmer cop-out for not automating a save/restore system in their apps. If its not DESIGNED or INTENDED to stream in the background, providing constant feedback to the user, over foreground apps, then it should never use active resources in the background, period) Reply phi promoted this comment

But why would that be announced at an Apple event where they announce iPhone OS 4.0. To shame AT&T even further? "Well they took a year to enable it, the cocksuckers, but you'll finally be able to get AT&T to enable tethering on your iPhone, are you all super duper happy, all of you who thought they'd have tethering within 3 months when I announced the previous revision of the OS?"

Because getting consumers angry at AT&T greatly improves Apple's ability to negotiate with AT&T. It is Apple telling AT&T "These iPhone customers, they're Apple customers, not AT&T customers. We're the company, you're the gateway for service. We can turn them against you."

Or some shit. I imagine Apple considers the ferocity of it's fans as an actual asset to be manipulated for business.

I posted this in the other thread and thought it may be of interest here:

just a note, in tier 2 dev center the latest 4.0 seed has multitasking still there, so I'm thinking that unlike with 3.0, it will actually survive for the regular dev betas that you all get seeded on thursday and hopefully GM release as well :)

some developers get even earlier access to firmware beta seeds through Apple's tier 2 invite only developer program. what I was saying was, last year, they had multitasking in some 3.0 seeds but they sucked up the battery faster than a slut on a cock, so it got removed some time before 3.0 was announced and seeded to the regular $99 members. I am saying that, now, in the latest 4.0 beta that tier 2 developers have been seeded, multitasking appears to still be working. not only are the strings there, but the code is still in the frameworks. it appears that Apple does need to "whitelist" your application for permission to run in the background though, it's still cool that multitasking may finally make it into this major rev after all.

I suppose there'll be some sort of faux multitasking; probably an OS supported way for apps to save/restore state (like Tweetie) - I don't think Apple are going to allow third party processes to run in the background except possibly some sort of 'widget' mode; allowing devs to create a strictly limited, stripped down 'sub-application' that can do a few basic operations as a widget (play music, etc).

I have done 2 upgrades to my iPod touch...I guess that's about $20. I wonder how much they are going to charge me this time. I'm really getting sick of being gouged for features that should have came with my iPod.

improved calendars would be good. Every time i change time zones all my appointments get fucked up. I sync it with iCal and use time zones in iCal, but for some reason this gets messed up whenever i change the time zone on my ipod touch.

i'm thinking they will branch the iphone OS at some point soon. seems like the ipad / 3gs / new iphone will be able to run a beefier operating system with multitasking and some sort of active lock screen. right?

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